Monday, June 15, 2015

Microsoft and Oculus Are Ganging Up on Playstation - Bloomberg Business

Does VR with a front-facing camera = optional (app-based) AR? Also see Dueling Realities (The Atlantic), which notes "Vannevar Bush’s prediction, half a century later, rings true: “The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.”"

"Ed Fries, the former Microsoft executive who led the creation of the Xbox, thinks the HoloLens could offers Microsoft a way to gain ground on Playstation. “Maybe AR will really win in a big way over VR because people want to see while they wear this thing on their heads,” he says. “That’s a potential wild card.” Sony is planning to use next week’s E3 conference in Los Angeles to discuss its own plans for virtual reality; Xbox hasn’t confirmed whether it will show off the HoloLens at the show.
Merel of Digi-Capital thinks augmented reality could end up being a more important technology than virtual reality because it is inherently more portable than a headset that completely blocks your natural vision. His company forecasts that augmented reality could be a $120 billion industry by 2020, with VR topping out at $30 billion and being more tightly focused on gaming and 3D entertainment. "